Job Creation

The U.S. Small Business Administration is inviting experienced early stage investment fund managers to apply for licensing as Early Stage Innovation Funds as part of SBA’s Small Business Investment Company capital investment program.

Licensed Early Stage Innovation Funds can receive SBA-guaranteed funding to match their privately raised capital up to a maximum of $50 million. Early Stage Innovation Funds must invest at least 50 percent of their investment dollars in early stage small businesses.

“This initiative is intended to promote American innovation and job creation by encouraging private sector investment in early stage small businesses,” said SBA Administrator Karen Mills. “Early stage small businesses face difficult challenges accessing capital. At the same time, in this financial climate, venture capital funds are finding it difficult to raise money from institutional investors. By licensing and providing SBA financial backing to Early Stage Innovation Funds, we hope to expand entrepreneurs’ access to capital and encourage innovation as part of President Obama’s Start-Up America Initiative launched last year.”

As part of the Start-Up America Initiative, SBA intends to commit up to $1 billion in SBA guaranteed leverage over a five-year period to selected Early Stage Innovation Funds using its current program authorization.

Exporting matters! It matters to firms that profit from exporting and it also matters to the national economy as a whole. Federal, state and local governments devote billions of dollars each year to encourage exporting among firms of all sizes and in all sectors. here's how RTM, hosted by USTDA can help you grow your business and strengthen the American economy.

Reverse trade missions provide unique opportunities to foster business relationships and build long-lasting partnerships between U.S. businesses and our overseas partners. During the past year, USTDA hosted more than 50 reverse trade missions to introduce U.S. businesses to more foreign delegates and business opportunities than ever before.

A key part of USTDA’s support of the National Export Initiative, these carefully planned missions enable foreign delegates to visit the U.S. to observe first-hand the design, manufacture, and demonstration of goods and services that can help the delegates achieve their development goals. The reverse trade missions are planned to target current and near-term business opportunities, creating immediate results and export successes for U.S. businesses.

This past year, USTDA introduced more than 600 foreign delegates to more than 1,000 U.S. company representatives across the United States. These foreign delegates included ministers, mayors, and senior governmental and private sector officials from emerging markets.

An EIN is also known as a federal tax identification number, and is used to identify a business entity. Employers with employees, business partnerships, and corporations and other types of organizations, must obtain an EIN from the IRS. The EIN is also known as an Employer Tax ID and Form SS-4.

You are required to have an EIN if you answer “yes” to any of the following six questions:

Do you have employees?

Do you operate your business as either a corporation or partnership?

Do you file any of these tax returns: employment, excise, or alcohol, tobacco and firearms?

Do you withhold taxes on income, other than wages, paid to a non-resident alien?

The work opportunity credit has been expanded to provide employers with new incentives to hire certain unemployed veterans.

On November 21, 2011, the President signed into law the VOW to Hire Heroes Act of 2011. This new law provides an expanded work opportunity tax credit to businesses that hire eligible unemployed veterans and for the first time also makes part of the credit available to tax-exempt organizations.

In support of the President’s call to increase collaboration among federal agencies and with private and public sector entities, there has been an abundance of interagency initiatives geared to increase job creation and entrepreneurship. Among these, MBDA has partnered with other federal agencies in support of the Job and Innovation Accelerator, Strong Cities, Strong Communities and Start-Up America.

As a federal partner, MBDA is providing technical support to grantees of the Job Accelerator to identify and match minority businesses with potential procurement opportunities resulting from the 20 regional innovation clusters. Moreover, we are excited that three MBDA Business Center operators won grants to implement the Job Accelerator projects. MBDA also has boots on the ground in New Orleans and Fresno, California to support economic development, business formation and expansion in those cities as part of the Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative. In addition, MBDA continues to participate in the Start-Up America initiative to support business formation and innovation.

As many of you may know, last year the President signed into law The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, commonly known as the Dodd-Frank Act, to promote the financial stability of America and to protect consumers from abusive financial service practices, among other purposes. In particular, the law brought many changes to increase transparency and accountability in the financial industry, strengthen consumer protection against unfair lending practices, and to promote greater inclusion of minorities and women in the employment and procurement of federal financial regulatory agencies. The law established the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion at the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other federal financial regulatory agencies.

President Obama sent three trade agreements to Congress for approval. While each of the trade agreements were negotiated differently, they all share one common goal - to increase opportunities for U.S. businesses, farmers, and workers through improved access for their products and services in foreign markets. Each supports President Obama’s National Export Initiative goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015.

All Trade Promotion Agreements have one thing in common. They reduce barriers to U.S. exports, and protect U.S. interests and enhance the rule of law in the partner country. The reduction of trade barriers and the creation of a more stable and transparent trading and investment environment make it easier and cheaper for U.S. companies to export their products and services to trading partner markets.This results in jobs here in America.

The most common question about these agreements is, "What exactly is in them?"

SBA Announces Record Loan Approval Volume in FY 2011 - Supporting Over $30 billion in Small Business Lending

Record $12 billion 1st Quarter Followed By Return to Pre-Recession Levels

Spurred in part by unprecedented loan volume in the year’s first quarter, small business loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration in FY2011 reached the highest mark in the agency’s history, supporting over $30 billion, continuing the rebound begun in 2009 and returning to healthy pre-recession levels in the final three quarters of the year.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED) is one of eleven awardees in a Small Business Teaming Pilot Program designed to help small businesses work together to compete for federal contracts, grow, and create jobs.

On September 27, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Small Business Jobs Act, the most significant piece of small business legislation in over a decade designed to provide critical resources to help small businesses continue to drive economic recover and create jobs. The Small Business Teaming Pilot Program, one of many beneficial programs made possible by the Small Business Jobs Act, awards grants to organizations for training, counseling, and mentoring to help small businesses enter into teaming relationships and compete for larger federal contracts. Teaming may take the form of joint venture and mentor-protégé relationships.

As one of eleven grantees selected from hundreds efforts to of applications submitted, the National Center was awarded $500,000 that will go toward creating jobs, businesses, and cooperative efforts between businesses and tribes nationally and within Indian Country. The organizations in the pilot program will help small businesses find other firms interested in teaming, form teaming arrangements, and find and bid on larger contracts. Grantees will leverage their existing resources and collaborate with SBA District Offices, resource partners, and other federal, state, local and tribal government small business development programs.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) today announced grant awardees in a pilot program designed to help small businesses work together to compete for federal contracts, grow, and create jobs.

The Small Business Teaming Pilot Program, made possible by the Small Business Jobs Act, awards grants to organizations for training, counseling, and mentoring to help small businesses enter into teaming relationships and compete for larger federal contracts. Teaming may take the form of joint venture and mentor-protégé relationships.

Eleven grantees were selected from hundreds of applications submitted. Grantees were awarded between $200,000 and $500,000 in funding, for a total of approximately $5 million in Fiscal Year 2011.

Recently, President Obama presented an aggressive plan to help small businesses get Americans back to work. The American Jobs Act would provide payroll tax cuts for 98% of businesses, a $4,000 tax credit for hiring workers who have been unemployed for more than six months, and extend the 100% expensing tax credit for large and small businesses.

The plan also includes provisions to expand job opportunities for hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults through a new Pathways Back to Work Fund that supports summer and year round jobs for youth; innovative new job training programs to connect low-income workers to jobs quickly; and successful programs to encourage employers to bring on disadvantaged workers.

The President is also directing executive branch agencies to accelerate their payments to small business contractors so they can reinvest that money in the economy and drive job growth. Additionally, the President is tasking his CFO and CTO with creating a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access government services.